Latest / Reframe / 19: Scott Jon, Aerial Photography, Creativity & Taking Flight.

Transcript

19: Scott Jon, Aerial Photography, Creativity & Taking Flight. · Reframe

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever wondered what truly fuels the creative mind?
0:04
SPEAKER_00: What ignites their passions and drives their creativity?
0:07
SPEAKER_00: G'day, I'm Dave McGuire, an Australian fine art photographer.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: From the moment I stepped into the world of photography, I have been captivated by the community and the stories behind the lens.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: Join me as we delve into humble beginnings, explore artistic visions, and discover how we as a collective reframe our minds through the power of creativity.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: Before we dive into this episode, I'd like to give a quick shout-out to the incredible team at Easty Filters Australia.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: It offer low-cast products, like high-quality filters with minimal colour costs, an impressive range of cinematic lenses, and various other accessories to fuel your creative endeavors.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: EastyAustralia actively support the greater photography community through workshops, educational events, and live streaming webinars on YouTube and other social media channels.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: You can even combine this with our promotions or discount by using the code racefriend.com at check outdisc.com.au today.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: Thank you and welcome to Race Right.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: G'day.
1:24
SPEAKER_01: Today we're speaking with Western Australian aerial photographer Scott John.
1:28
SPEAKER_01: We dive into his passion for colour processing and new business endeavors.
1:32
SPEAKER_01: We're talking to Scott John today from Western Australia.
1:34
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the show today, mate.
1:36
SPEAKER_02: Thanks, boys.
1:37
SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much for having me.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: No worries.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: It's been a long struggle to get you on, but we managed to get you there.
1:43
SPEAKER_02: It has, and that's my fault.
1:45
SPEAKER_02: You uh you called me last week or messaged me, and I was sitting at Truck Centre Truck Stop, yeah, uh, which is a massive factory, about to go and quote an epoxy floor there, and I went, Oh, wait a minute.
1:57
SPEAKER_02: I meant to be on in 20 minutes.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of epoxy floors, do you want to come to Sydney and and do mine as well?
2:04
SPEAKER_02: Or yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:05
SPEAKER_02: I don't want anything to do with them.
2:07
SPEAKER_02: I hate them.
2:08
SPEAKER_02: I I wish I'd never knew how to do them.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: Just say you don't or charge triple.
2:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's it.
2:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, no, no, that's a that's more like what I do.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: Good.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: For all our listeners, uh, can you give them a run through on yeah, your approach to photography and how you go about it?
2:26
SPEAKER_01: Because from where we said, you have this awesome style that's it's it's yours, and I can always tell when it's it's a Scott John aerial.
2:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:37
SPEAKER_02: I I to get to that style, I had to go through a lot of negative comments, I think.
2:45
SPEAKER_02: Um you know, when you're trying to find your way in this industry or this creative pursuit, especially with the event of social media and you're sharing it a lot, the feedback's quite instant, you know.
2:57
SPEAKER_02: And um in my first few years trying to yeah, and it it does, it takes you years to find a I think I remember it was either um Christian or Tony, you know, someone said to me, you know, you'll know when you've sort of made it because people will be able to tell your work without even seeing your sign off, you know.
3:15
SPEAKER_02: And um you you know, my first few years I'm like, when's that gonna come?
3:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, because you you you're experimenting in different directions.
3:20
SPEAKER_02: And um, yeah, it's hard because you uh I in the beginning I I really like colour and I really like pushing colour, but in the beginning it was like I had the keys to the Ferrari.
3:32
SPEAKER_02: I could push the colour, but I didn't know how to drive the Ferrari, you know, or dri drive the car.
3:37
SPEAKER_02: So I, you know, some of the some of the constructive criticism I got, I'd say was on point.
3:42
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I but I kept to it because I loved it.
3:45
SPEAKER_02: I I loved colour, you know, I really wasn't about too muted tones.
3:49
SPEAKER_02: And you know, there's photographers I I respect and love who go down that sort of, you know, um very muted look or very but even that in itself is a skill to get to get those images balanced.
3:59
SPEAKER_02: But I wanted colour and I wanted to do it properly.
4:02
SPEAKER_02: And so I was stubborn and I persisted for another few years of very icky, sort of um maybe over the top, and and then I found my way, you know, and and um part of it is is just keeping focus on the direction that you want to go creatively and and taking on criticism, but not letting it push you in a direction that you don't want to go.
4:24
SPEAKER_02: And um, yeah, I I you know did use it out and I sort of arrived in aerial photography in particular because that really let me push, you know, the colours in WA that you find are just freaking amazing.
4:37
SPEAKER_02: And it all sort of led then, I'm like, okay, I like pushing color, but I so I need the camera to push the colour because if you're going up there on like a crop sensor or something that doesn't have the colour depth, so then you know, I remember the guys, Christian Fletcher and Tony and that, they were using phase one, and I was like, Well, there's no way in hell I can forward one of them.
4:56
SPEAKER_02: And Ben from um from Team Digital here in Perth, they hired them out.
5:03
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, can I please hire one?
5:05
SPEAKER_02: And um, and that was a lot cheaper, still expensive.
5:08
SPEAKER_02: Ben looked after us, but um, and then it was like when I started shooting on medium format, it was like, hey, now I'm now I'm there.
5:15
SPEAKER_02: I had the skills, the colour editing skills.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: I I got every book on color harmony and colour theory, you know, sort of learned how to drive the car rather than just jump in it and hit the accelerator straight down.
5:27
SPEAKER_02: And um, and then it was like, okay, medium format makes sense.
5:31
SPEAKER_02: You got you got 12, 14-bit color depth, and those two things married together, allowed me to really bring out what I wanted to bring out.
5:40
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, shifting color or just really balancing those colors through through the landscape.
5:46
SPEAKER_02: And then it was like, cool, we're on, you know, and and then I've sort of been shooting that combo ever since.
5:51
SPEAKER_02: Um, I mean, now things have developed.
5:54
SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, you and Nick on Z7s, Z8s and stuff are I mean, what they produce is is pretty amazing, you know.
6:02
SPEAKER_02: But back back eight, nine years ago, when I was sort of starting that journey, it was medium format all the way.
6:08
SPEAKER_02: You know, there was that that recipe was like, okay, it makes sense now.
6:11
SPEAKER_02: I can I can push these files because I I recently started go or in the last few years I've gone on to drones, you know, the Mavic 2 and the Mavic 3.
6:20
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
6:21
SPEAKER_02: Mavic 2 I like, but the definition was there.
6:24
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
6:25
SPEAKER_02: Like you get a crispy nice image that you could print, you know, you could print it 1.4 meters bloody tall or whatever you wanted to.
6:32
SPEAKER_02: Um, but as soon as you went push it, like I like to push it, it just goes blitz.
6:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's I don't know.
6:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we've colored that they both had those, and yeah, I feel the difference straight away, especially you try to do like a luminosity mask with a with a digifile, and you can't even shift the color away from what it started at.
6:49
SPEAKER_02: It just it just goes no, doesn't it?
6:51
SPEAKER_02: It just like all the colours just go into one block and you just it it just says no.
6:55
SPEAKER_02: The Mavic 3 is a little bit better, like I reckon it's I was talking to a friend the other, it's like 20% better.
7:00
SPEAKER_04: Yep.
7:01
SPEAKER_02: So you know, Mavic, it's gonna, it's getting there, but it's still way behind going up in a in an aircraft with something like uh you know, either the latest um yeah, Nikon mirrorless or or an older.
7:12
SPEAKER_02: I mean, even the Pentax 645 Z, um which Jordan shoots with.
7:18
SPEAKER_02: I just borrowed his camera to go up to Shark Bay only a few months ago because I was camerless at the time.
7:23
SPEAKER_02: Well between cameras.
7:25
SPEAKER_02: And um, I mean that thing is like what, 10 years old?
7:28
SPEAKER_02: But it's got that 50 megapixel medium format, beautiful color depth sort of and it's just awesome.
7:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I shot on that and it's just like, yeah, there it is again.
7:37
SPEAKER_02: It's just you could just pull those images and and edit them the way you want.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: How do you find I was sorry, before I go into it, um, which drone are you using?
7:46
SPEAKER_00: So the Mavic 3 well versus Mavic 3 Classic.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: We're using the classic, yeah.
7:50
SPEAKER_02: That's at the bottom of the ocean, about one kilometer off my house right now.
7:55
SPEAKER_02: Um I can probably see it from here if I can see through the water.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: Um what's your approach with the drone to try and get a little bit more out of it?
8:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like what are the tricks there?
8:06
SPEAKER_02: It's pretty difficult.
8:08
SPEAKER_02: So the Mavic 3's definitely opened it up.
8:10
SPEAKER_02: Like once I got the Mavic 3, I'm like, okay, we're we I can work with this.
8:13
SPEAKER_02: I can't punch them as hard as I, you know.
8:15
SPEAKER_02: When I say punch, I mean shift.
8:17
SPEAKER_02: Uh a lot of my work I will shift color.
8:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because what I what I'll do is I'll see first thing I'm looking for is like an object or some sort of story in the image.
8:25
SPEAKER_02: It could be as simple story as that looks like a crocodile, or that looks like a swan.
8:30
SPEAKER_02: Or it could be even, you know, it's a story of more depth than that.
8:34
SPEAKER_02: Then it's like, cool, I've got that.
8:36
SPEAKER_02: Now what color harmony do I want?
8:38
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
8:39
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes nature just doesn't give you all that harmony of the colour that you want.
8:44
SPEAKER_02: You know, then you'll have three of the colours in the fourth one, you're like, magenta.
8:48
SPEAKER_02: I hate magenta.
8:49
SPEAKER_02: Or so you'll want to shift those colours.
8:51
SPEAKER_02: So the next thing I'll do is you know, go to a colour harmony book and say, right, look, what colour harmony do I want?
8:57
SPEAKER_02: What have I already got here and what's gonna what's gonna feed through and work?
9:01
SPEAKER_02: Then I'll throw that into lab and then start going, right, okay, how can I get these colours as close to this as I want?
9:06
SPEAKER_02: So the viewer doesn't know what I'm doing.
9:09
SPEAKER_02: But when you view the image, it feels like, oh, that works for some reason, you know, as sort of the key behind what I do.
9:16
SPEAKER_02: But with the Mavic, you don't have as much leeway uh with that.
9:23
SPEAKER_02: Um I've done a lot of stacking of images.
9:26
SPEAKER_02: So with the Mavic, one of the first things I found um was I just run up like a lawnmower.
9:32
SPEAKER_02: So I go out to the tailing ponds and I just run the Mavic.
9:36
SPEAKER_02: You can do it on auto now, and I just run it looking straight down and I just snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, turn around like a normal snap, snap.
9:45
SPEAKER_02: So I'm overlapping 50, and then I come back and put all that together into a file and make myself something a little bit chunkier and keeping the best bits of each one.
9:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I found that that system gives me, you know, 60% on my way there to dealing with like a medium format file for aerial.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
10:04
SPEAKER_02: And that's sort of that's how I've got around it.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: How many batteries do you take with you if you were doing the stacking?
10:10
SPEAKER_02: I I've taken three, you know, so you get enough out of three.
10:13
SPEAKER_02: But I've got the land or the whatever cargo swapped down my poor Land Rover died at 200,000 kilometers.
10:19
SPEAKER_02: Oh no.
10:20
SPEAKER_02: But um I'm in Pacheria, but so I've just got the batteries just on stack, just charging, you know, so I'm just driving around.
10:27
SPEAKER_02: Then that's what normally what I'm doing.
10:29
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm the vehicle's nearby and I'm just rotating.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, cool.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: Um I was doing something similar.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: Like if I had the Mavic, I had a Mavic 2, um, and if I wanted to shoot an aerial with it, I'd do like, you know, 48 shot stack.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: Like I'd just like a stitch and then stick it together.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: So then you had a file that was already 1.2 meters without enlarging it, and that gives you that ability to give it a bit more of a squeeze.
10:54
SPEAKER_02: It does a and and I thought it sort of becomes data mining.
10:58
SPEAKER_02: It's why I I I my biggest one was 120 images of a tailing pond south of Earth.
11:04
SPEAKER_02: And do you know what I did?
11:05
SPEAKER_02: We had to go pretty quick, um for for reasons unknown.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: Um but but but um so I just lawn mowed it.
11:15
SPEAKER_02: I'm like I said to I was with Paul Holland, I don't you know Paul Holland um from Tassie, and I'm just like I'm lawnmower, I'm gonna I'm just gonna get the whole thing.
11:23
SPEAKER_02: I'll burn through three batteries and I'll just get the whole thing in perfect focus from a certain height.
11:29
SPEAKER_02: Then I'll take it back and then just pick what I want.
11:31
SPEAKER_02: And that's what I did.
11:32
SPEAKER_02: So I photographed almost the whole pond, took that back, and then I well just for shits and gigs, I made a whole 120-image one.
11:41
SPEAKER_02: My computer almost lit on fire and blew the house up.
11:44
SPEAKER_02: And then um, and then what I did is I had everything captured though.
11:48
SPEAKER_02: So what I did is I put that big one together, made a smaller version, and then I'd look at it and say, Where's my composition?
11:54
SPEAKER_02: And then I'd go, okay, there it is.
11:56
SPEAKER_02: So then I'd stitch those 30 images together and go, okay, that's my that's where I want to be.
12:01
SPEAKER_02: And it was cool, but it sort of took a bit of the fun away from it as well.
12:06
SPEAKER_02: Like, because I like my aerials in, you know, in the old crappy Cessnas, and sort of, you know, you you get one chance at it.
12:13
SPEAKER_02: And that was like very much like data mining, you know.
12:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
12:17
SPEAKER_02: Um but but cool.
12:18
SPEAKER_02: It was like, yeah, you know, if you if you've only got one shot at somewhere, uh you can just go like harvest that whole lot, take it home, and there you go.
12:25
SPEAKER_02: You can just pick your composition for wherever you want.
12:28
SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's a lot of files.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: Apart from your DJ, your your drone, your DJI, um, what camera are you using if you're up in an aeroplane or a helicopter?
12:38
SPEAKER_02: Go to you know, Fuji, Fuji 100 megapixel, yeah.
12:42
SPEAKER_02: Um the Pentax 645Z or the Phase 1 IQ 150.
12:48
SPEAKER_02: Um that one must be fun.
12:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but it's not the 150 megapixel, it's the 150, so it's a 50 megapixel, it's an older one on the XF body.
12:59
SPEAKER_02: But it's really nice, yeah.
13:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they're beautiful cameras, except they suffer.
13:05
SPEAKER_02: Um, I took it to New Zealand to shoot aerials in New Zealand and I ended up having to shoot on my Nikon D810 back then.
13:13
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: Um, because they just don't like anything outside of really optimal studio conditions, really.
13:20
SPEAKER_02: Like they can, like I had it negative 20 degrees up in the chopper, and the battery contacts for the battery had contracted so much that it wasn't making contact, so the phase was just like dropping out, turning on, dropping out.
13:34
SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, they're not real, you know, whereas your Nikons and your cannons and stuff, like you go and take them in negative 40 and they're still they're still cranking.
13:42
SPEAKER_02: Um so yeah, those three medium format cameras is essentially what I shoot on.
13:46
SPEAKER_02: The Fuji 100, I really liked it.
13:49
SPEAKER_02: Fuji went, hey, we're gonna give you a hundred megapixel camera for like one-fifth the cost of a phase or a has.
13:56
SPEAKER_02: And they did and they achieved it for ten thousand dollars.
14:00
SPEAKER_02: But and it was awesome, and you had the detail, but it was something about the way it reproduced colour that I that was just nothing on that phase sensor or that Pentax sensor.
14:10
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's interesting.
14:12
SPEAKER_04: That's interesting.
14:12
SPEAKER_02: I had that camera for I've had the hang of oh, I had the 50 megapixel and the 100.
14:17
SPEAKER_02: So I did the 50 one first, which I like better because the 50 used the same sensor as the IQ 150 phase and the Pentax 645Z.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: And then I got the 100.
14:28
SPEAKER_02: You see, if I went back to Fuji again, I'd go the 50 over the 100.
14:32
SPEAKER_02: I haven't tried the new version too, but I'm assuming it's using the same sensor.
14:37
SPEAKER_01: Well, why would you do that?
14:38
SPEAKER_01: Is that because the colour reproduces a bit different on the 50?
14:40
SPEAKER_02: I that man, and um I might just be really extra anal and just, you know, and a bit or I could be OCD and and it's just purely in my mind.
14:49
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
14:50
SPEAKER_02: But it's like it just didn't work with it.
14:53
SPEAKER_02: Yes, it's something about the way that I I the way I edit and the way that it registered colour between that 150 to 50 suited me so much better.
15:04
SPEAKER_02: Um I just but but we're talking like minute margins, you know.
15:09
SPEAKER_02: So I definitely still wrote it.
15:11
SPEAKER_02: Don't get me wrong, I'd I'd take one up any day.
15:14
SPEAKER_02: But um, but something about the uh the smaller sensor I like the way that it reproduced colour and and the sharpness.
15:22
SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, nice.
15:24
SPEAKER_01: I want to touch on that colour harmony books you were talking about before.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: Because I think anyone could learn a lot about colour from someone like you.
15:34
SPEAKER_02: So if you well can run us through what you need to read something about a give us a hundred times to retain like five percent of it, and then maybe two hundred times to retain ten percent of it.
15:43
SPEAKER_02: So um that's being ADHD for you.
15:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, colour hardy is pretty good, it's just got pictures, so you know pretty well.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: It's easy to remember what it's just got like pictures of colours, next.
15:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I've got like um uh most of them are in my bookcase, but these are a couple to see me.
16:03
SPEAKER_02: So that's that's just like if I'm looking through what it's this is for marketing, um, basically.
16:08
SPEAKER_02: So if you're gonna make um you know marketing material for certain things or a certain feeling.
16:14
SPEAKER_02: So I sometimes use that if I'm wanting to get a feeling because images are all about you know, you you're trying to make the viewer not see what you're doing, but see what you're doing, you're trying to give them a feeling but not make it obvious.
16:26
SPEAKER_02: So that'll be something that I go to, which is yeah, this book sort of just gives you color that they might use in certain areas of advertising or um promotions and stuff like that.
16:36
SPEAKER_02: And then I've got um this guy here, color inspirations.
16:40
SPEAKER_02: So this is an awesome book.
16:42
SPEAKER_02: Um, because what it does you've got like try or double sort of colour combinations, quad color colour combinations.
16:49
SPEAKER_02: And uh I know this is not gonna be a video one, but for you boys, you can you can see it.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and um those book um titles in the show notes.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, cool.
16:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and this is super hey, this sits on my freaking on my desk next to me because I'll get an image and I'm like, okay, what what colours have I got in this book that are as close to it as possible?
17:08
SPEAKER_02: And it gives me you'll never get all of them, but you might get two, right?
17:11
SPEAKER_02: And then you might get another two that are close.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, cool, we're gonna rock that in that image.
17:16
SPEAKER_02: And so then I'll, you know, I might go and sort of play with the other couple of colours to get them get them where I want.
17:22
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, that's something that sits next to me all the time.
17:24
SPEAKER_02: Um and yeah, become a very important part of my my workflow, really.
17:30
SPEAKER_02: For aerials in particular, it's a little bit harder with see with standard landscapes, like if I go shoot the Eiffel Tower, if I go, I mean you've got um colour grading, sure, but some there's some iconic things you can't really shift the colour of because people are gonna go, uh, this is meant to be red, and it's and it's purple.
17:49
SPEAKER_02: Whereas out in the outback, where no man is ever, you know, woman has ever set foot, in you know, no one knows if it's purple or or if it's red.
17:58
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's and look, some people would say, well, you've got to keep exactly how nature intended.
18:04
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's not really my you know, my my style is sort of using nature as the canvas, and then you know, um, but when it comes to colour, at least having a little bit of leeway.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're preaching.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm the same, I attack everything.
18:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Tom Tom Tom Putt, who's a good friend of mine, and I I love love hanging out with him, chatting with him.
18:24
SPEAKER_02: He's just like, we're very different.
18:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
18:25
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I know, because he's like, you know, he's he's just as it as it was.
18:30
SPEAKER_02: You know, I've seen him edit around my years, it's just like a couple of little slots.
18:34
SPEAKER_02: I mean, his work is amazing, and yeah, he comes from film background as well.
18:37
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, that guy just and same with Paul Holland.
18:39
SPEAKER_02: I shoot with him a lot.
18:40
SPEAKER_02: These guys, like, we'll be shooting in the airplane.
18:43
SPEAKER_02: He's like, Yeah, have a look at my back of the camera.
18:45
SPEAKER_02: And I look at it, and it's just one composition nailed it the first time, and then to the next composition, nailed it, and then he'll look at back on my camera, it's like 20 shots of the same one, like like a machine gun, then 20 shots, and you're like, Yeah, you can tell you came from film and I you know, and I came from digital, because I'm just like machine gun fire, like, hey, I'll just take 20 and I'll get back and pick one.
19:07
SPEAKER_02: And Paul's just you know, correct every time, and it's yeah, quite interesting to see that difference.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: There's no correct, there's no right or wrong, it's just that's how you should.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: I mean, and same with the the whole creative freedom of your editing as well.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, it definitely being different is good though.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not like your stuff is outstanding, and so is Paul's and Tom's.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: Like, don't get me wrong, yeah.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: I they're fantastic as well.
19:29
SPEAKER_02: But same with you guys.
19:30
SPEAKER_02: Like, I mean, I love it, and we can all be different, we can all have different styles, and we can all exist in the same realm and all be noticed as well.
19:38
SPEAKER_02: You know, like I'll know Tom's work or your you know, we all it's yeah, it's it's I respect it, you know.
19:43
SPEAKER_02: Like, and I think that's key is having respect for people that, you know, because I and Tom loves what he does, I love what uh I do.
19:50
SPEAKER_02: He respects my work, I respect his, yeah, vice versa.
19:52
SPEAKER_02: And uh Tom's just an example of very purist sort of photographer, you know, like um not Ken Duncan sort of level, like where Ken's very, you know, but but all that sort of thing, you know.
20:03
SPEAKER_02: We we I've learned people from people like that as well.
20:06
SPEAKER_01: Um you gotta learn you learn from everyone that comes from that hero, you know, and or anyone, even like an uppercover who's just starting, they might have some special technique they use that you never even thought of just because they've looked at it on Google or something, you know.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Same thing like Carl and I go out together, we'll be literally shooting identical uh compositions down or very, very close, and our stuff is gonna come back way different.
20:31
SPEAKER_02: It's so cool.
20:32
SPEAKER_02: How cool is that though?
20:33
SPEAKER_02: Because because you can go shoot together and you're not, you know, you're not worried about like and then you both come home and you you're presenting your workers, oh shit, we both got exactly the same.
20:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's different.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, that yeah, yeah.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: It's like you walk home and hit the same preset button on Lightroom, and they need everyone who has the same picture.
20:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm not a fan of presets.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm not a fan of everyone uses them, you can use them.
20:58
SPEAKER_01: Go ahead, do you?
20:59
SPEAKER_01: But I just don't personally I don't like them.
21:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean they're hard, aren't they?
21:03
SPEAKER_02: But I think like a lot of those preset packages, and and look, some photographers make a I I'd say their most of their income from selling presets.
21:09
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
21:10
SPEAKER_02: But I think it I think it works in some circumstances, in some ways of editing, like you know, street photography, for example, where your lights are gonna be an orange or a blue, and so the presets could be pretty well managed to like hey, well, that's gonna suit that's in.
21:24
SPEAKER_02: But for the kind of stuff we do and everything, it's like, yeah, it's very hard to get a preset that'll just yeah.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: Even if you like I've made some of my own actions and stuff in Photoshop where you sort of make it saying go, oh, I can get like 90%, and then you can go back into the the group and then edit each layer individually.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I found that I'd do that and I end up spending longer trying to fix it than just doing it the way I want it to feel at the first time.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
21:49
SPEAKER_02: Um, I I do another thing that so I don't use Lightroom that much anymore.
21:53
SPEAKER_02: I I I've been using Patch 1 a lot.
21:56
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you guys use that.
21:57
SPEAKER_01: Actually, I've got to gripe with that.
21:59
SPEAKER_01: I don't I'm not a fan.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a fan, but I think because it looks like Lightroom, I use Photoshop typically, but uh tell us how you use it.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: I'd like I'm interested in it.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well Capture one uh it was a I was forced to use it because Lightroom didn't really support well it does support the face files.
22:14
SPEAKER_02: Um but you know that was sort of the go-to.
22:17
SPEAKER_02: And I started so what it what it is, it's crap for anything.
22:22
SPEAKER_02: If you if you're shooting Nick on a canon, use Lightroom.
22:25
SPEAKER_02: You know, but what what it does, the engine, the editing engine in that or the colour engine or whatever, it's far more tuned for for the medium format.
22:35
SPEAKER_02: Um so you uh if I'm editing phase or the Pentax medium format or the Fuji, um I'm on that.
22:43
SPEAKER_02: If I'm editing Nikon or Canon, I'm on Lightroom because it it butchers the it butchers the medium format files on Lightroom.
22:50
SPEAKER_02: But I Lightroom's just so much nicer with your presets and you know everything else.
22:55
SPEAKER_02: Capture one's really just for colour, um, which is why I sort of be drawn to it.
23:01
SPEAKER_02: Um but yeah, I I I predominantly shoot on phase and and pentex at the moment, so I'm always capture one.
23:09
SPEAKER_02: And I know what you mean though, because I miss Lightroom.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: I've never used Lightroom.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: No, never, never what do you use, Dave?
23:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm straight Photoshop.
23:18
SPEAKER_02: You're straight Photoshop.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: So you're out of camera into bridge.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, into RAW.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: I go straight into camera raw.
23:24
SPEAKER_02: So into camera raw.
23:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay, I'm with you.
23:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
23:27
SPEAKER_02: And then which camera raw is Lightroom anyway, isn't it?
23:30
SPEAKER_00: It's just without without the cataloging system.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: I just go in there and change like the chromatic aberrations and things like that.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: Get rid of those.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: And then straight into Photoshop and attack it again.
23:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean that's that's pretty yeah.
23:43
SPEAKER_02: I I Nick Rains got me onto Lightroom years ago.
23:48
SPEAKER_02: Um for just as for the catalog cataloging factor.
23:52
SPEAKER_04: Yep.
23:53
SPEAKER_02: Um, now I if you looked at how my folder system is, you'd think that what's the point of using Lightroom because it's freaking terrible.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: And it's just like it's spawns of spawns of spawns of spawns, and it's just not very organized.
24:06
SPEAKER_02: But the intention around Lightroom was I can have everything cataloged, and there's my, you know, and everything's there, and uh, but I don't do that uh anymore, really.
24:14
SPEAKER_02: So but yeah, I think that's why people use it.
24:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, because it's it's basically camera raw with that cataloging thing strapped to it.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, see, I do all mine on photos, uh just on folders on my hard drive and just have PSD RAW and then that's it.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: Final and final, final and final, final, yeah, final and final, the final, final, final.
24:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: I don't have to stop in doing that where I don't have like a final folder or anything.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: Everything stays in its original folder with like month, the day, the year, yeah, and then I then I'll have like everything's underscored.
24:46
SPEAKER_01: It'll be like whatever the place was, if it was a sunrise, if it was a sunset, if I was with a person, I'll put their like their first name so that then we are on it.
24:55
SPEAKER_01: I shot that for this person, so then anything I put in that search bar finds it.
24:59
SPEAKER_01: You're probably like us, right?
25:01
SPEAKER_01: Like, I got 24 terabytes, right?
25:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like where is that file?
25:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I went to NAS for a while, NAS storage, and then that became a hassle.
25:11
SPEAKER_02: And now I'm just like in uh I'm trying to move to the cloud at the moment, like most of my stuff to cloud so I can access it anywhere, because that seems the next sort of natural progression for ease of you know what I mean.
25:22
SPEAKER_02: Like you just be especially if someone, you know, up until recently, if I was away and a client, you know, emailed me or messaged me on Instagram, whatever, and said, Hey, we need this for this thing, it's like, oh, I've got to wait until I get back to you know my main PC.
25:38
SPEAKER_02: So putting a lot of like the more used finished folders, like mainly all my finished stuff on the cloud has made life a lot easier.
25:45
SPEAKER_02: Because I can just go onto my phone and go, there it is, bang.
25:49
SPEAKER_02: Off you go.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: That's a prior than that.
25:51
SPEAKER_02: I was having to come home.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: So why were why the NAS?
25:53
SPEAKER_00: What was the punish about a NAS?
25:55
SPEAKER_00: Because isn't effectively that your own personal cloud service?
25:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sort of back back then when I went into it, I could have had that, I could have had that thing connected online.
26:05
SPEAKER_02: So it was another version of a backup, really, but it was all of everything, you know, on one place.
26:11
SPEAKER_02: So like at that point, I think I had like 16 terabytes or 17 terabytes back then, and it was just like, right, it's all on there, it was all on fast hard drives as well, so all very quickly retrievable.
26:21
SPEAKER_02: But um, I got into it, and then in the end, things changed.
26:25
SPEAKER_02: You started getting solid state drives, you know, that were pretty reliable um and independent of the computer, and I just and then really large four terabytes, six terabytes.
26:34
SPEAKER_02: So I just started going into them and then just storing them and going, oh, that'll do.
26:38
SPEAKER_02: You know.
26:39
SPEAKER_02: Um, some people are a little more anal than me, I guess, with with storage, but then the cloud came along, you know, where that became affordable to put terabytes and terabytes and terabytes up there.
26:49
SPEAKER_02: And then that was the next thing for me, is like, okay, one version on the cloud, one version on my computer, and one version, you know, just stacked in one of my drawers in the house.
26:58
SPEAKER_02: And that way I'm I either got to have a house fire, computer go up, and the apocalypse happened to lose, yeah, to lose it all.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: So I have a cloud the cloud storage has been on my mind recently.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: Who who what kind what are you using for your cloud storage?
27:12
SPEAKER_02: What company I'm using just Dropbox at the moment, you know, so and I'm sure there's better ones out there, but I started with Dropbox and so that just sort of became my natural progression.
27:22
SPEAKER_02: So I've got like Dropbox finished folder, Dropbox Edits folder, and so just similar to what I got on my desktop.
27:28
SPEAKER_02: So if someone comes to me and says, Hey, we did this image in three days, and I'm not, you know, I can just go bang, straight on.
27:35
SPEAKER_02: There you go, it's in that folder.
27:36
SPEAKER_02: Off you go.
27:37
SPEAKER_02: If we're talking like the absolute RAWs, well, they're gonna be back on either my backup hard drives or my PC, but very rarely am I going all the way back to to a RAW, you know.
27:47
SPEAKER_02: So that's been really handy.
27:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:50
SPEAKER_02: I mean, all my clients now, that's what I pretty much use.
27:53
SPEAKER_02: Hey, it's like, okay, cool, it's all there.
27:55
SPEAKER_02: There you go.
27:56
SPEAKER_02: You've got you've got the only access code.
27:58
SPEAKER_02: Because I've been selling like I've been selling a lot of digital, you know, versions overseas lately, like where um, you know, it's just too much, too much house of trying to post a 1.4 meter freaking, even even if it's rolled, you know, let alone frame.
28:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:14
SPEAKER_02: So I had I had a you know, clients where I'm just giving them a digital certificate.
28:20
SPEAKER_02: Um, and then you know, basically they're signing on to that.
28:23
SPEAKER_02: It's just single use only for them, not for, you know, uh resale.
28:27
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, depending on the image, because there's some images that are like my little babies that I'm not gonna you know let go in that regard.
28:34
SPEAKER_02: Um and then yeah, I'm just giving I give them a little sign-off signature as well, and then go, there you go.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: You know, do you like print prepare that so it's like numbered and signature and everything and then send it over as like just the absolute minimum it has to be to print the size they asked for?
28:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
28:50
SPEAKER_02: So I I normally like around 6,000 on the long edge.
28:54
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, if you depending on depending on size, I don't really mind because I'm getting them to sign off on because at the end of the day, the thing I came to the conclusion of is look, if I saw it being redistributed, they've signed this, you know, this bit of paperwork saying about the digital copy.
29:10
SPEAKER_02: If I really needed to, you could go and hunt it down and and you know, but very rarely are you gonna get people do that.
29:16
SPEAKER_02: You know, most of these people I've known for a long time who are just longtime followers on Instagram, um, who've wanted to own my work.
29:23
SPEAKER_02: We've even done quotes back and forward trying to get prints over it, it's just like that's not gonna work, you know.
29:29
SPEAKER_02: And um, so I'm you know, I'm there's a little bit of a risk there, but I've covered my ass as much as I can.
29:35
SPEAKER_02: And um, and it's you know it gets your work out there, and and um and yeah, so no, I've been doing a bit of that lately.
29:41
SPEAKER_02: And Dropbox is a big part of that because I can make keys and you know, only access sort of things.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: I do have a question because I've actually working on my website again now and have decided I'm gonna just ship to Australia.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: But that's a good idea of doing um digital prints.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: Is there a way that you can monitor it, or you're just putting faith in the people that followed that you've sent this to?
30:05
SPEAKER_02: Um you know, there's yeah, there's a couple of aspects of that.
30:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean, how could you monitor it?
30:12
SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean you could you could try and hide something in it.
30:16
SPEAKER_02: Um you know what I mean?
30:18
SPEAKER_02: That can be scanned or something if someone was, you know, if you needed a prevent down the track, it's pretty easy to prevent your image.
30:26
SPEAKER_02: Um I don't think you're fully protected in any way these days, especially with AI rescaling and everything.
30:32
SPEAKER_02: If someone really wanted to rip you, you know, but but then the community's so connected, unless it was somewhere you know deep in Russia where some town's done 20, 30 versions of your image we're never gonna see.
30:45
SPEAKER_02: There's a good chance it's gonna pop up somewhere anyway.
30:47
SPEAKER_02: If someone was, yeah.
30:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that that was my mindset.
30:50
SPEAKER_02: Because what I was I was doing myself out of business.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I was I was having to say to people, well, sorry, I can't do that, you know, like because people were asking, can I have a digital?
31:01
SPEAKER_02: And that's you know, years ago, I was like, how do I do that?
31:04
SPEAKER_02: I was worried.
31:05
SPEAKER_02: And so in the end, I just went, okay, well, do a digital certificate, get them to sign a you know, basically a waiver or a contract that says, you know, it's only for them using it, um, you know, within two properties or whatever, whatever your length you want to go to, sign on to that guys.
31:19
SPEAKER_02: Here you go, there's your signature, there's your um, and then I'll you know, I open the door to some extra extra business, which yeah, but there is a risk.
31:29
SPEAKER_01: I had a thought while we're talking about that, where if you got made if you put the certificate online and then use the link to make a QR code and then put the QR code on the image.
31:40
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's what I did you say.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: I put a post up the other day, I wanted to bury a QR code in in an image.
31:47
SPEAKER_02: So with this mobile cover thing I'm doing, I wanted to bury the QR code in the back of the mobile cover.
31:53
SPEAKER_02: So if someone you're talking to someone so hey, that's pretty cool, what is it?
31:56
SPEAKER_02: Just hold the phone up, scan.
31:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it scans the back.
31:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and there's a guy, there's a couple of programs that are almost there, but you still sacrifice image quality.
32:06
SPEAKER_02: But um, once that's cracked, that'll be awesome because you can hide it in a print, you can hide it like on these phones.
32:13
SPEAKER_02: Because I I originally the the only other option I've got is to have it on the phone cover, but there's not many places on a phone cover to stash a QR code.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: Not a lot of room to use that.
32:22
SPEAKER_02: The other the other thing that I'm looking into back with prints is you know, because with the with mobile phone covers, we're using a company out of California in the US called Printful.
32:32
SPEAKER_02: As they're because I went through I went through a heap of different people.
32:36
SPEAKER_02: Like I got I ordered sample covers and I'm like, Jesus Christ.
32:40
SPEAKER_02: They had the best quality ones that I could find.
32:44
SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, the whole so they print they they print it and then ship it off from there.
32:50
SPEAKER_02: But there's other companies that I found in the States that are really good quality drop shipping printing companies, right?
32:56
SPEAKER_02: And I've always shied away from that.
32:58
SPEAKER_02: Going back to your question, how do you supply someone in Norway or how do you supply someone in Colorado?
33:03
SPEAKER_02: You know, the other way is to have a a way that you can quality control it, you'd have to probably run, you know, prints off, speak to that company, and then you know, you have that drop ship factor.
33:16
SPEAKER_02: So where the order goes in on the website, it gets printed from the factory in the US, you might have to sign off on it somehow and then it goes off.
33:24
SPEAKER_02: Um that's one way to make it affordable, you know.
33:27
SPEAKER_02: But you're not there, you know, and that's what I don't I don't necessarily like that when you're talking to fine art prints that at one point, you know, whatever you've got to make a bit of a compromise.
33:41
SPEAKER_02: Um, but if you crack that, then you you know you're selling to a whole new market and people who can own your work.
33:49
SPEAKER_02: But I'm not there yet, because I don't trust anyone to I'm the same as you.
33:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
33:54
SPEAKER_01: Not on your bot, but I'm not using that.
33:56
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, I'm not.
33:58
SPEAKER_02: I mean, with the phone covers, I've had enough, you know, just to get the covers to where I want, I've gone through six revisions.
34:05
SPEAKER_02: Each one cost me, you know, a bit of bit of money.
34:07
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
34:08
SPEAKER_02: And I've had to because it's because it's out of California, I wish, you know, but uh I wish it was somewhere local that does it.
34:14
SPEAKER_02: We just don't quite have it here in Australia yet.
34:16
SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, I've had to go for revision, revision, revision, revision, and I'm finally like the amount of sharpening that you've got to dose into it, um pretty incredible.
34:25
SPEAKER_02: But I'm there now, like it's there, it looks freaking amazing.
34:28
SPEAKER_02: But um, yeah, that's been a challenge.
34:30
SPEAKER_02: I don't know about you guys.
34:32
SPEAKER_02: Speaking about trying to put them on covers and it's just yes, it's a bit of a process.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: So these phone covers, there's a bit of a project going on at the moment that you're working on.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: Is that correct?
34:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
34:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I um I well it sort of stemmed from people buying digital copies because all of a sudden my people were being able to buy my work at a more affordable rate.
34:55
SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean if I'm printing a 1.3, 1.4 meter framed piece, that's costing me seven, eight hundred dollars or more if I'm using a museum glass to to make.
35:05
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, you know, even if you're selling it at a at a reasonable price, that's very expensive to your average you know, punter who just wants to own some nice West Australian, Australian photography.
35:18
SPEAKER_02: So the digital thing then was like, okay, well that's cool because that's becoming affordable.
35:22
SPEAKER_02: I'm still getting my costs covered and you know, putting a bit of money back in the kitty to go out and do more photography.
35:28
SPEAKER_02: So then it was like, okay, how can I sort of compound that down more?
35:32
SPEAKER_02: You know, because and you know, the covers became sort of where I was at.
35:36
SPEAKER_02: And as I think there was a stigma attached to covers yeah, years ago, you know, you wouldn't why would you why would you put your your work on the back of a phone?
35:45
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
35:45
SPEAKER_02: That's a bit tacky, but your phone's now at two and a half thousand dollars a lot.
35:51
SPEAKER_02: You know, so a$70 or an eighty dollar cover or whatever it is is not too much of a stretch to then own a bit of art on the back of that cover that travels with you.
36:01
SPEAKER_02: So that for me was like, okay, I think that's a good way to be able to go to all these people that do want to own work that might not be local, to say, well, hey, now you can.
36:11
SPEAKER_02: It's affordable and um and it can cruise around with you.
36:15
SPEAKER_02: So that was sort of where the idea came from is sort of going down the la, you know, from only selling really large prints, physical prints, to then digital, to then now, you know, phone covers and trying to find something where where we can, you know, not isolate a large part of the population saying, Oh, I need two thousand dollars to send that print.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: Especially in the current market, uh current climate and economy.
36:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
36:40
SPEAKER_02: Where yeah, definitely.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: In the future, where will they be able to find those?
36:44
SPEAKER_02: Um so Scottjohn AerialArt.com.au.
36:48
SPEAKER_02: The idea behind that is eventually that site will expand into other in other yeah, into other avenues.
36:54
SPEAKER_02: I've sort of got a few ideas of expanding that art on technology um area.
37:00
SPEAKER_02: But um, yeah, Scottjohnarialart.com.au.
37:04
SPEAKER_02: Um then that site should be up in the next few days, hopefully, once I've ironed out all the creases.
37:10
SPEAKER_02: You know, to to to when you're doing that kind of stuff, which you guys probably know, like from front end to back end, it's just got to be absolutely perfect.
37:17
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
37:18
SPEAKER_02: Um so it's just getting all those creases ironed out.
37:21
SPEAKER_02: And I'm very particular.
37:22
SPEAKER_02: So I've like done test order, test order, test order, trying to make it fail at something so that I don't get uh any issues.
37:30
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, that that's sort of you that's the progression that I use to get to that point.
37:34
SPEAKER_02: Phone covers.
37:35
SPEAKER_02: And I think years ago I was attaching too much of a stigma to it, you know, like uh you don't want to put your work on a phone cover.
37:41
SPEAKER_02: You know, phone covers, you know, it's a bit of plastic, but I mean the phone covers these days are pretty, pretty high tech.
37:48
SPEAKER_02: Um the phones that they're covering, like I said, are worth a lot of money.
37:51
SPEAKER_02: And um, it's nice to have a bit of art on your phone that's worth two and a half.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, say five, ten years ago, the phones were just in our pockets and only out there when we made a phone call.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, now you're gonna have your work in front of people on a daily basis, on an hourly basis as well.
38:09
SPEAKER_02: And that's you're so spot on.
38:11
SPEAKER_01: Well, someone's on a train or something, they're like playing away with in front of them, and someone goes, Hey, well, what's what the hell's that?
38:16
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, Oh, it's got Scott John.
38:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I mean, if you where's I don't know where my bloody one is now, but um I've oh where is it?
38:26
SPEAKER_02: It's somewhere, but yeah, they look freaking amazing.
38:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like I I like my works because a lot of abstract it only suits the abstract aerials, really.
38:34
SPEAKER_02: I you but it just looks it looks awesome, and exactly like the set, it's just there in people's hands all the time watching it.
38:41
SPEAKER_02: If you can find me how to get a QR code blended in, man, I'm you know, because the uh the ultimate idea for me was people to say, hey, that looks cool, what is it?
38:49
SPEAKER_02: Just be able to scan it.
38:50
SPEAKER_02: Flip takes you to the website and they can order one as well, you know.
38:54
SPEAKER_02: But um, it's just trying to trying to get one in there.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: There has been I have seen some AI tools lately that have been implanting words into a scene.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: So I wonder if it could be the same thing.
39:05
SPEAKER_01: That's the same thing as AI tool that does the QR codes, but like sky is the top detail, it doesn't give you the same resolution.
39:12
SPEAKER_02: No, but that would be you know, the moment that's what I'm trying to crack.
39:17
SPEAKER_02: Um but yeah, I'm excited about it because you know, I sell prints, you know, a few prints every month, but it's you know and I love it and it's great.
39:27
SPEAKER_02: No, it's not something I'm pushing or marketing, you know.
39:29
SPEAKER_02: It's just I get mainly my inquiries for Instagram.
39:32
SPEAKER_02: But um, but it's just you know, like I've got mates who want to own prints in their houses or building a new house, and you know, going to them and saying, Hey, even if I sell it to you at cost, you're gonna be almost a thousand dollars, you know.
39:44
SPEAKER_02: They're like, Oh, what?
39:45
SPEAKER_00: It's like that.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: People understand how how expensive it actually is, not just for the beer, but for what it costs to print and frame.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let alone how much it costs to take it, right?
39:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's it.
39:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:58
SPEAKER_02: Right, and and then to you know, that museum glass.
40:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you the difference between your standard and that museum is just like you know, it's like whenever I sell now, it's like, please, you you need to pick museum glass.
40:08
SPEAKER_02: I'll even do it at goddamn cost because the difference is so night and day, um, especially in a high reflective area.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: So then exactly what I was doing.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I just yeah, you'll have the the customer would have it at cost because it was gonna cost them too much if you added a markup.
40:24
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: That's insane.
40:25
SPEAKER_01: You can never put the put the markup on the print only.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: So the print will be expensive, and then when they frame, it ends up you just do the frame at cost.
40:34
SPEAKER_02: You you're exactly right.
40:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like if you know, eventually I'm gonna probably go and add that element onto my website.
40:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the next year or two is gonna be researching drop shipping prints, you know.
40:46
SPEAKER_02: Even if I've got to fly to wherever the hell it is that I'm gonna be printing them from and sit there and spend a couple of days with them and run you know what I mean?
40:55
SPEAKER_02: Like if even if it goes to that level and run them off and physically sign off and say, okay, I'm happy with that.
41:01
SPEAKER_02: There's my profile, there it is.
41:02
SPEAKER_02: Now I'm gonna fly back to Australia, you know, away you go.
41:05
SPEAKER_02: Um, if I can crack that, then I think that's what I'll do, you know, is is um is just incorporate that museum glass into the price of, you know, just not give people an option because that's it.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: You know, trying to research like a sort of global supply chain that can produce fine art for you no matter where you go, just it means you can offer that free global shipping.
41:25
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
41:26
SPEAKER_01: And that's that's a massive thing now.
41:27
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure people have cracked it.
41:29
SPEAKER_02: I I you know, there's uh but uh yeah, yeah, it's a hard nut to crack, but it's it it that's my once this but you know once these phone covers are out and I'm happy with that, and you know, there's that sort of humming along that's the next thing I want to I want to really crack because yeah, trying to hold stock is is a very dated sort of thing, isn't it?
41:48
SPEAKER_02: You know, like back in the day, if even with the phone cases, you go and buy a hundred of each different model, you'd have to keep them in your your garage, yeah, or whatever, and you might only sell half of them because you know so it yeah, it's the same with your with your prints, it allows them to go to clients a lot quicker, but yes, it's it's getting to a point where the quality's there, isn't it?
42:10
SPEAKER_00: Oh, if you ever meet someone in Sydney, we know a guy.
42:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
42:15
SPEAKER_02: Well, see the c the thing is, right, is it's it's the people it's the clients in Europe and America.
42:21
SPEAKER_02: They're the market, they're the markets that you know, because I've they love our sort of Australian stuff, don't know.
42:26
SPEAKER_02: You know, and um I've got a lot of really cool people who sort of follow my way from there, but it's like how do you get how do you get them supplied?
42:35
SPEAKER_00: That's a hot phone, isn't it?
42:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is, yeah.
42:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm working yeah, I've got a few people out of England that follow me as well, out of England and Europe.
42:43
SPEAKER_00: And um and I've actually spoken to them about where they get their prints done purely for that exact reason.
42:49
SPEAKER_00: We should do that actually.
42:50
SPEAKER_01: We should have like photographers over and should get in if you listen.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: Jump onto Instagram and comment.
42:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, comment wherever you print your stuff at.
42:59
SPEAKER_01: Well, start creating global supply chains and share it in the whole community.
43:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's what I mean.
43:04
SPEAKER_02: Or we all get together and we say, right, you know, for the power of 20 of us or 30 of us.
43:09
SPEAKER_02: That's a great idea.
43:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and go, right, here's one hub here in America or the UK.
43:14
SPEAKER_02: Go to them and say, right, we're gonna point all our business towards you guys.
43:18
SPEAKER_01: This is a great idea.
43:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's it.
43:23
SPEAKER_02: And then we all and then when everyone independently runs through there, they get a heap of business and and we've got a hub, it uh a hub that we trust, you know.
43:30
SPEAKER_02: Because if you're supplying 30 photographers from here, that could be one way to do it for you.
43:34
SPEAKER_00: That's uh I think it's a great idea.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: And and the fact is that then it opens the market up for everyone, like the Americans or Europeans or English to to sell over here and vice versa.
43:46
SPEAKER_00: I think I think it's a brilliant idea if we all connect to the community.
43:49
unknown: Yeah.
43:50
SPEAKER_02: If you look at if you look how stupid my idea is, I I shoot on fifty megapixel phase files to now print my my pictures this big on the back of a phone cable.
43:59
SPEAKER_02: Prince Stupid.
44:02
SPEAKER_02: No, but I mean it's more for the colour part of it.
44:05
SPEAKER_02: But you know, my point being is you know, if I could find something like that, I mean, our work is enjoyed big, isn't it?
44:11
SPEAKER_02: Bigger and better.
44:12
SPEAKER_02: And if that's okay locally, like I've got a lot of my work that I sell locally around here, or even within Australia, we can put it on a truck.
44:19
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, to be able to share that with with you know America, Asia, Europe.
44:24
SPEAKER_02: Um, and we all have, you know, with social media, now you've got people from the UK, you we've got people from all around the world, eh?
44:30
SPEAKER_02: But it's just how do you get it to them?
44:32
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, maybe we need to make a group chat and come up with an idea on that, guys.
44:37
SPEAKER_01: I think it's a great idea.
44:38
SPEAKER_01: I think that's a plan.
44:40
SPEAKER_01: We can create a hub around that.
44:42
SPEAKER_01: And a hub and then then we can sort of get everyone in on it.
44:46
SPEAKER_01: Everyone would enjoy the benefit of that.
44:48
SPEAKER_01: It wouldn't be a single person thing, you know.
44:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and then you know, whoever that printer is would would get a big significant boost in business and hopefully be able to offer a large group like us at you know a good heavily discounted rate.
45:02
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
45:02
SPEAKER_02: And um and away you go.
45:04
SPEAKER_02: Because yeah, that's where you I think that's that's missing part um for for now that social media's around.
45:11
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
45:12
SPEAKER_02: Like if you I don't know, you know, you can go into your analytics for your followers and everything, and it's like, yeah, there's a big you know, a lot of people are uh from those other places, and of course we look after our guys and here in Australia first, but right now you you know a lot of us photographers are missing out on you know a large chunk of that pie um because we just can't get them over there.
45:32
SPEAKER_01: I gotta chunk from USA actually.
45:35
SPEAKER_01: I find that my my website's analytics between like the one o'clock in the morning time in Australia.
45:42
SPEAKER_01: It's just like pumping and crawling with people from the United States.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: It's funny you say that because I was looking at the analytics for the podcast, and in the top cities, New York was in our top five.
45:53
SPEAKER_00: Oh wait, really?
45:54
SPEAKER_00: It was above, it was above places like Melbourne and Adelaide, and it was above our own country.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: We had new uh yeah, New York was what's up in the top five.
46:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, it's it's super interesting, yeah, looking at that kind of stuff.
46:09
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I mean, guys, I'm down after this.
46:11
SPEAKER_02: We can I I reckon if we could get enough of us together.
46:14
SPEAKER_01: Let's get a WhatsApp cabinet.
46:16
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it'd be even be difficult to get people on board.
46:19
SPEAKER_01: Like not at all.
46:20
SPEAKER_01: Even the top tier blokes like Tom Python's things like that, yeah, who would be into that.
46:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're they're he shoots the whole globe anyway, every every once a year.
46:31
SPEAKER_02: Because it's it's and then and then you know, finding who that printer is, going, you know, probably having a delegate or someone at least who knows them.
46:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's just having that beat on the ground, isn't it?
46:42
SPEAKER_02: Signing off saying, All right, I I'm saying that this is uh as we all know, it's very difficult.
46:49
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I print with a guy called Paul for Perth Prolapse here, and I love it, you know, because I can you know, depending on who it is or what print it is, I can go in there and I physically sit there with him and okay, this, that.
47:01
SPEAKER_02: No, I didn't like that.
47:02
SPEAKER_02: Um, so you know, it's that's a huge part of the process.
47:07
SPEAKER_02: But um, but if we crack a lab that we all you know that we all can trust, and um then yeah, I'm in.
47:14
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure everyone's gonna be able to do that.
47:16
SPEAKER_01: I want to touch on that when you with your the way you go about your printing and your LAB colours.
47:22
SPEAKER_01: Because you go down the creative approach and you do push your colours pretty far.
47:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm interested to know how that computes to back to an ICC profile so you can like get within the gamut ranges of the paper.
47:35
SPEAKER_02: You've got to be careful.
47:36
SPEAKER_02: So, like, oh so what I'll do is I'll go in the lab, then I'll run back to RGB.
47:40
SPEAKER_02: So I literally just enter into lab, do my colour editing, and then I come back into Adobe RGB, and then from there I'll check color gamut to see if anything's blown out, and then I'll go to print, you know.
47:52
SPEAKER_02: But you're right, right there is sometimes, depending on what files like what colors they are, you'll run back your normal first test is to run from lab back into Adobe, and you'll see it go and you're like, oh, okay, I've I've pushed data that existed there, but does it exist here?
48:11
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'm gonna have to go back in.
48:13
SPEAKER_02: And that's my first test.
48:14
SPEAKER_02: Then you'll check the color game and go into the print.
48:16
SPEAKER_02: So you've got to be can't go stupid, you know.
48:19
SPEAKER_02: But I'm normally running my HSL and color slider, you know, everything up in the top right corner, that's telling me if I'm blowing anything out or if I'm going to a realm that the data's not there, because it'll just block up.
48:31
SPEAKER_02: So I'm I'm watching that because you're exactly right.
48:33
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
48:34
SPEAKER_02: If you're not careful, you will just it'll give you what you think is colour there, but then you'll yeah, it doesn't transfer to print, it just ends up as this blocking crut.
48:45
SPEAKER_01: So dealing with red, right?
48:47
SPEAKER_01: Because the one thing I notice is that your reds are very similar to like the reds that Tony Hewitt gets.
48:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that is something that's very difficult to actually produce.
49:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it did.
49:00
SPEAKER_02: Well, I learned, yeah, most most of my training when I was starting off was from Tony and Christian.
49:06
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
49:06
SPEAKER_02: You know, like I I was with those guys doing workshops and just learning from them.
49:11
SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, so part of that came comes from them.
49:15
SPEAKER_02: The other part with you know, reds have too much red in them when you're doing aerials.
49:19
SPEAKER_02: So one of the simplest things I do always is just pull up RGB, curves layer and Photoshop, go to the red channel, and I just yank that shadows that's down the bottom left corner.
49:30
SPEAKER_02: I just tucker in and I just pull a bit of red out.
49:33
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
49:33
SPEAKER_02: Um, because that's reds always have too much red.
49:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
49:37
SPEAKER_02: And then then I'll push like a little bit of green.
49:40
SPEAKER_02: So I so what I'm doing is I want I like going from that that red, red to like that ruby red.
49:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that darker blood.
49:48
SPEAKER_02: It's almost like blood red, you know, like not but that darker blood red.
49:52
SPEAKER_02: It's like black red, right?
49:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's like black red.
49:55
SPEAKER_02: That's what I'm aiming for.
49:56
SPEAKER_02: And so I what I'll do like with those Sharpe ones with the green bushes in between is I'll just go out, go to select color range, put the little eyedropper on the reds, make myself a red mask, and then I'll just sit there and just edit the red.
50:09
SPEAKER_02: So I'll run through RGB first, pulling that uh red, green, blue, pulling the middle, pulling the top, and like, okay, cool, that's where.
50:17
SPEAKER_02: Then I'll do um, you know, the contrast, then I'll go out of there, go into lab, pull the select color range dropper again, then I'll go and edit the colors in lab.
50:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then I'll just fine-tune that again, then I'll move from lab back to RGB to make sure we haven't pushed it too far.
50:32
SPEAKER_02: And then there's my reds.
50:33
SPEAKER_02: Cool.
50:33
SPEAKER_02: Now I'm happy with the red.
50:34
SPEAKER_02: Now I want my green bushes to look cool.
50:36
SPEAKER_02: I'll do the same with my green bushes.
50:37
SPEAKER_02: Okay, now I've done that.
50:38
SPEAKER_02: Now I want my blues, and I'll run that same process through each colour until I get to the colour in the book that I want to shit because I don't have color harmony.
50:49
SPEAKER_02: Then I'm like, now I'll go back into lab.
50:51
SPEAKER_02: And one one technique that I use in lab is lab has a lightness A and B channel.
50:57
SPEAKER_02: That's why it's called lab.
50:59
SPEAKER_02: And A and B channels are basically down the bottom of the slide.
51:03
SPEAKER_02: On the bottom left is your more bluey older colours, at the top is your warmer colours.
51:07
SPEAKER_02: It's just two channels.
51:08
SPEAKER_02: So what I'll do is I call it like my train line technique.
51:11
SPEAKER_02: So I'll just put a dot, because I've got grids, you've got grids on that line.
51:16
SPEAKER_02: So there's like four grids running like knots and crosses, and I'll put a dot on the corner, a dot in the middle, a dot on the corner, a dot in the middle, a dot on the corner, all the way up that line.
51:24
SPEAKER_02: And then I'll start from the top and wiggle, wiggle the top.
51:28
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and there's my light oranges.
51:30
SPEAKER_02: Then I'll go down the next dot, there's my medium oranges, then I'll go to the next dot, there's my reds.
51:35
SPEAKER_02: So now I know, okay, now I'll start pulling them.
51:38
SPEAKER_02: And so if I want to shift the colour, once I know where it is on that line, then I'll push it.
51:43
SPEAKER_02: And if you if you get it to go like an S, you'll actually shift your colour.
51:46
SPEAKER_02: And that's how I'll shift colours within lab.
51:49
SPEAKER_02: It's way better than going to Q saturation.
51:51
SPEAKER_01: So um when you do it with the lab, what are you using curves or using levels?
51:56
SPEAKER_02: Curves, like yeah, so that's why that line, I know we're not going to have video, yeah, but when you open the curves, your lightness A, B, so you go from lightness to A, and you'll have a line just running in a diagonal across, just like you would in normal RGB because in Photoshop.
52:12
SPEAKER_02: And I'll put my dots on that.
52:14
SPEAKER_02: So dot at the end, a dot in the middle, a dot at the end of the box.
52:18
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if I'm making sense here.
52:20
SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't I'm drawing with my hands, and I'll I'll put those dots all the way along, right?
52:25
SPEAKER_02: Because what I'm doing is I'm setting up points from the cold colours to the warm colors, and now I'll use that for color balance as well.
52:31
SPEAKER_02: That's how I color balance and shift colors.
52:34
SPEAKER_02: So I don't color balance in Photoshop because it's pretty primitive.
52:38
SPEAKER_02: You've got you've got RGB like that.
52:40
SPEAKER_02: I'll use that lab and then I'll just shift each one of those dots.
52:43
SPEAKER_02: So I'll go through A, okay.
52:44
SPEAKER_02: Reds look cool, like that warmer, and I'll go down to my blues, then I'll go into the B channel, put dots all along, and I'll shift.
52:51
SPEAKER_02: And you just get this really like it's a really nice, flexible way of balancing your colour, and a really nice way of shifting color as well.
53:01
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't break up.
53:03
SPEAKER_02: Um, whereas, you know, if you like then I'll give you another example of how you simply change a color.
53:08
SPEAKER_02: You in RGB mode, um, you go to Q saturation layer, uh, go down to the menu, pick blue, shift blues, right?
53:17
SPEAKER_02: But it it doesn't look anything like doing that in lab.
53:21
SPEAKER_02: Um you know, using that point technique.
53:24
SPEAKER_00: Have you have you ever used a program called 3D Light Clip Creator?
53:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
53:28
SPEAKER_02: I've got it on my computer.
53:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I I used to use it a lot more.
53:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, that's really cool because you're editing colour in like a 3D sort of block.
53:36
SPEAKER_00: I I would I started using that when I was doing uh a lot of my fine art stuff I do now, but I've worked out another way to do it.
53:43
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I used to use that 3D Lut Creator, and when you were saying those dot points, that's exactly what I had in my mind.
53:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking, is that what you're using?
53:49
SPEAKER_00: And he said curves.
53:50
SPEAKER_02: With the yeah, yeah, it's um I like that.
53:55
SPEAKER_02: You do some cool stuff because it's sort of it spits your whole image on this 3D blind, sort of, it's in 2D realm, and you can really shift stuff.
54:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but what I found is from 3D LUT creator to lab to RGB to print, you now have more say 3D LUT is even more flexible than than lab in a way, yeah.
54:16
SPEAKER_02: But then I do it in 3D LUT and then come back to Lab and Lab's going, uh, I don't even have those, I don't even have that data.
54:23
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
54:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then uh and then I'm taking it Adobe RGB and Adobe's going, I got nothing.
54:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
54:29
SPEAKER_02: So I sort of I sort of have to be careful and go, but I love it.
54:34
SPEAKER_02: It is a really cool tool.
54:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
54:36
SPEAKER_02: Like you've got a real you've got a simple image that might just have sort of like two colours in it.
54:41
SPEAKER_02: Like, say if you're a car photographer and they promote this on it, and you've got a red Ferrari on a white background, or you know, I mean, just shift that red Ferrari to a yellow, uh, in those sort of man, and it's just like it's perfect, you would not know, yeah, because all the reflection everything shift with it really well.
54:56
SPEAKER_00: It's great for using um shadow colour, like removing shadow colours.
55:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
55:02
SPEAKER_02: That that's what you get, you know.
55:03
SPEAKER_02: I I noticed with a lot of my aerial work.
55:05
SPEAKER_02: There's two things I hate.
55:06
SPEAKER_02: I hate too much blue and shadows, and I hate magenta, magenta, magenta, magenta.
55:11
SPEAKER_02: I hate magenta.
55:12
SPEAKER_02: So trying to remove magenta or too much blue and shadows, once again, you don't want to go to that new saturation layer and just go take it.
55:21
SPEAKER_02: You've just killed me.
55:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it goes grey.
55:24
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
55:24
SPEAKER_02: So I'll go into lab and I'll use lab and I'll delicately pull and then I've sort of retained the data there, but I've not made it look like like you see like a gray muted bit of crud.
55:38
SPEAKER_02: Um that's exactly what it looks like.
55:40
SPEAKER_02: That's exactly what it's horrible.
55:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because I like a lot of those areas, you you'll get like you'll get these shadows, and as you're editing and you're adding more contrast, if you're doing it global, those shadows will start like a the lightless blue, but by the time you've got to your end of your editing, they're like they're like this rich bloody.
55:58
SPEAKER_01: It looks like they're glowing from like quickly a waste or something.
56:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but yeah, it's one of those things where lab iPhone, lab editing, it's just become part of my workflow.
56:09
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
56:09
SPEAKER_02: And that if you're gonna give it a go, the best thing I could say is yeah, you just put those dots.
56:13
SPEAKER_02: I think you end up with six dots.
56:15
SPEAKER_02: You know, three you start with A and you go to B.
56:18
SPEAKER_01: Is this in Capture One you're talking about?
56:21
SPEAKER_01: No, this is in Photoshop.
56:22
SPEAKER_01: Do it in Photoshop, yeah.
56:23
SPEAKER_01: Using the grid and I know you can do it in Photoshop, but yeah, we when you mentioned Capture One before, I was like, because you'll say you two colours out.
56:34
SPEAKER_02: But I don't think they have uh I've never seen lab editing in capture, but um, but yeah, Photoshop, definitely, man.
56:41
SPEAKER_02: Like, and if you haven't, if you haven't given it a go, it's really worth like if you starting from a RAW and you've gone through camera RAW and you're in the Photoshop and you have but your colour balance is not quite there, you know.
56:54
SPEAKER_02: Go try that technique through the A channel and the B channel.
56:57
SPEAKER_02: And then and then once you've done it in lab, convert back to Adobe RGB and just continue your workflow.
57:03
SPEAKER_02: But you the results you get, I reckon, are just superior to trying to color balance in Adobe RGB, which is your normal, you know.
57:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the only other way I do it is curse layer red, blue, green.
57:14
SPEAKER_02: Um, but that's still primitive compared to what you can get in lab.
57:18
SPEAKER_02: But um, but yeah, that's that is probably one of the main things that I use in my aerials that that that I found was a missing component to be able because what what happens when you're shooting a really red desert, the light reflects and hits the red, right?
57:34
SPEAKER_02: But it pollutes everything else around it.
57:36
SPEAKER_02: So you might have red desert with blue water, or red desert with standing trees or whatever.
57:40
SPEAKER_02: That light hits the red.
57:42
SPEAKER_02: The red then hits the blue, and so it contaminates everything around it.
57:46
SPEAKER_02: And the trick with a lot of the aerials is getting rid of that contamination.
57:50
SPEAKER_02: So tailing ponds are another example.
57:53
SPEAKER_02: You have a really bright red tailing pond, you'll take a photo, you'll come back, you'll do contrast and go, oh, well, that's just red.
57:58
SPEAKER_02: Well, the tailing ponds actually have all these other different colours hidden in them.
58:02
SPEAKER_02: I think I sent you a few images.
58:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, one of them is a tailing pond, I think, in there.
58:06
SPEAKER_02: They have got all these other colours, but the red and the reflection or the reflection off the water beaming around just pollutes everything else.
58:12
SPEAKER_02: So this lab technique that I use allows me to separate everything and sort of get colours that have been hidden or drowned out um by the light bouncing red around everywhere.
58:22
SPEAKER_01: That actually fills in a few gaps in my knowledge there, where I was like, how do they separate those colours?
58:28
SPEAKER_01: Because look at aerials, my like my own aerials, I'll be like, how do you separate that without even trying to use luminosity masks becomes nearly impossible to pull them out?
58:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, to pull them out.
58:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yes, that's right.
58:40
SPEAKER_02: Because luminosity masks sometimes are even too precise in themselves, aren't they?
58:46
SPEAKER_02: Because you're like, I'll use a mask to edit colour, um, but then it's like, no, no, I can see the edges on that.
58:52
SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, that lab technique definitely and then just another really simple technique that I use is select color range and just put the eyedropper on.
59:01
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's a real simple way just to look for the colour part of it, you know, those tailycon shots and desert shots.
59:07
SPEAKER_02: If if the lab's still not separating it enough, because what you can do with those dots is once you get you can put another dot, then you can even, you know, you can manage it even more.
59:16
SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, if if not, um then you can go out and I just use that select color picker, real simple, and then I'll use that in lab.
59:25
SPEAKER_02: Um and that's the thing I learned is is getting the pollution of the other light because it's just such a different plane.
59:32
SPEAKER_02: You know, if you're shooting a sunset, you want everything to be bathed in the sunset light.
59:36
SPEAKER_02: That's why you're there at sunset, aren't you?
59:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
59:38
SPEAKER_02: That golden light turning yellow, turning green, depending on what it's hitting.
59:42
SPEAKER_02: When you're shooting aerials, that's not so important.
59:44
SPEAKER_02: You're wanting to sort of you're wanting certain things to stand out, and normally it's the color of that standing out rather than because you know, sort of on a really flat 2D plane.
59:54
SPEAKER_02: Um, so that's sort of one key that took me sort of years to figure out, and with the help of people like Christian and Tony, and you know, you get you get inspiration from everyone, don't you?
1:00:04
SPEAKER_02: And then you go and you you go and make your own of it, and yeah, away you go.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_01: With your the way you present your work, how it's like it literally to me it look they look like paintings, right?
1:00:15
SPEAKER_01: So how much of like where do you come up with how that's gonna come out as a final image?
1:00:21
SPEAKER_01: Do you see it while you're in the air, or is it something that comes in post-processing and then do you focus on like oh it's gonna look awesome in a room like that?
1:00:29
SPEAKER_01: Like, do you focus on catching rooms?
1:00:32
SPEAKER_02: Well, yes, so so when I'm capturing, I'm just looking for like I won't really know.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_02: Like some things I'll capture and be like, that is gonna look smoking hot.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, got it.
1:00:44
SPEAKER_02: But there's other stuff that's been sitting in my folder for like five years, and I'll just be cruising through one day, flip it around, turn it upside down, punch some contrast, and be like, how did I miss that?
1:00:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know what I mean?
1:00:55
SPEAKER_02: All of a sudden there's a vision there.
1:00:57
SPEAKER_02: Um, so I wouldn't say from capture I've got a vision, but it's more so at the editing table, it's like, okay, I've got this here, you know.
1:01:07
SPEAKER_02: Um, all right, now I've got something to work with, you know.
1:01:10
SPEAKER_02: Like it's always like I said before, it's always got to be uh have I got a story or a shape, and can I start telling that story with now colour and you know tones and and things like that?
1:01:20
SPEAKER_02: Um but yeah, I I wouldn't then I purposely try and make my stuff feel painterly, and I do that by softening some things on purpose.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_02: You won't notice it, but like the reds in between the green bushes on the shark base shots, they've got um sorry, but just tricking you there, there yeah, they've got um surface blur um attached to to just the red sections.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_02: Um so the bushes stand out, but only the slightest little bit because I'm I'm sometimes trying to soften something and then sharpen something else to give the aerial depth that doesn't really exist because it's just flat looking down.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_02: Um so and then I'm going through the whole image, like okay, that I want that really soft, I want that medium, I want that quite crispy, and I'm working that through, you know, and the crispy bits are the areas that I want to stand out.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_02: Maybe the softened softened bits of the really colorful areas, but I'm softening them up so that you're balancing it and I'm then running that process through the area.
1:02:22
SPEAKER_02: So run the color process, run that process through, and then you know, the final process might be removing things that are you know, because when you've sat there staring at an image for eight or nine hours, you know, the best thing I found is hand it to a friend and you'll hand it to a friend and go, didn't you see the master thing that looks like a pair of books?
1:02:39
SPEAKER_02: Or see, you know, how do you miss that big thing sitting there in the corner, you know, which is a big blotch?
1:02:44
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Well, I didn't see that the whole time, you know, because you're so hyper focused on the email.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's not you know, you would have had that, eh?
1:02:51
SPEAKER_02: It's like I've had people point out, like I'll send it.
1:02:53
SPEAKER_03: And it's like, how do I miss that?
1:02:55
SPEAKER_03: Like that was there the whole time.
1:02:56
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
1:02:57
SPEAKER_02: Um and then yeah, if it's gonna go lately in the I'd say the last five years of my work, I've been making stuff that's been absolutely suited to walls.
1:03:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:03:07
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
1:03:08
SPEAKER_02: So from the minute I capture to edit, the whole process is with it being on a wall in mind.
1:03:17
SPEAKER_02: Because it's almost a different it's a different way of editing sometimes, but those images will be messed with a lot less.
1:03:23
SPEAKER_02: You know, you want every pixel to be in its absolute original state, no nudging or moving or or replacing something or you know, unless it can be done absolutely, you know, whereas there may be work that's more artistic for just sharing, you know, on social media that maybe I've got a little bit more leeway with.
1:03:44
SPEAKER_02: Um so yeah, but stuff on walls I'm really particular about.
1:03:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:03:48
SPEAKER_02: Because it's that big that and I see it through a mole.
1:03:51
SPEAKER_02: I'm expecting everyone's like you and me and us guys, right?
1:03:54
SPEAKER_02: And girls, but but most people would not notice anything.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_02: Like we're picking up on this little thing, and most people wouldn't notice, but we're so fussy, aren't we, on our own work?
1:04:02
SPEAKER_01: No, I totally agree.
1:04:03
SPEAKER_01: I remember yeah, it's funny when you say when you say hand your picture to a mate and see what it looks like.
1:04:08
SPEAKER_01: I remember doing this picture of I think it was in hand rail pool with Carragini.
1:04:12
SPEAKER_01: And it was like I got the reflection, but I had so I had all the striation sort of coming in and reflecting perfectly.
1:04:18
SPEAKER_01: And I I give it to someone, they go, Oh, it looks like a vagina.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh yeah.
1:04:22
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't even thinking about that.
1:04:25
SPEAKER_01: I I I I was like, man, it's a vagina photo now.
1:04:29
SPEAKER_02: I didn't I didn't I didn't I wasn't gonna tell you because now you say vagina, I could say penis so hard.
1:04:36
SPEAKER_02: So um I did one at I did one at Tas in Tasmania in um in was it Mount Field National Park?
1:04:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, beautiful waterfall, like soft light.
1:04:49
SPEAKER_02: And I gave it to my mate, and he's like that rock's a giant penis in the foreground.
1:04:54
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, oh shit.
1:04:55
SPEAKER_02: And it was, it was just a massive wang right there.
1:04:59
SPEAKER_02: How did I not see that?
1:05:01
SPEAKER_00: You know, I thought as soon as you said Mount Field, I thought you were gonna say the big tree.
1:05:05
SPEAKER_01: Oh if you get up the top of like Cradle Mountain, yeah, there's a certain angle.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_01: If you shoot away from Cradle Mountain over like Dove Lake, yeah, if you're in the right spot, Dove Lake literally looks like a cock and ball.
1:05:19
SPEAKER_01: Every time I get up there, I'm like, oh, I can't photograph that.
1:05:22
SPEAKER_02: One thing I've learned is nature's got a good sense of humor because they just hide penises and vaginas everywhere.
1:05:27
SPEAKER_00: Everywhere you look and uh vehicles in WA.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_02: I can't I can't go through there without being a kid just laughing at it.
1:05:35
SPEAKER_00: I've got to literally have a photo on my phone where I'm sitting down and between my legs.
1:05:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Adam and I we were like we doing a little shoot down, we got uh Mimosa Rocks National Park and that all the inlets there, yeah.
1:05:51
SPEAKER_01: We just had the right tide.
1:05:53
SPEAKER_01: Uh in the middle of all the inlets, there was these little sandbars that looked like like dicks, right?
1:05:59
SPEAKER_01: Adam and me were.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_01: We're sending each other photos of like with on the on the computer and we got that song, you know, red light, green light, we can start playing that song, and as it does it, we're zooming in and out of this penis in the middle of the everyone would like to think that we're like really super serious, like, you know, but it's like, no, if if I see a penis in nature, I'm gonna be an immature, I'm gonna be as immature as possible.
1:06:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's just when I we're out to we we grab some lunch before we start a recording, and my son, he's just sitting there telling fight jokes to Cole.
1:06:29
SPEAKER_00: We never go up.
1:06:31
SPEAKER_02: Never.
1:06:32
SPEAKER_02: I love it though.
1:06:33
SPEAKER_02: That's what that's what keeps us going.
1:06:35
SPEAKER_02: And like good part, good part will always say funny.
1:06:39
SPEAKER_02: The day a good part is funny, is the day they bury me.
1:06:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh god, we've lost the point.
1:06:46
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, yes, back to the topic.
1:06:50
SPEAKER_02: Um but that's been cool, guys.
1:06:52
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't know if there's anything else you want to you wanted to go over, but um, but it's been I I I will say this, thank you for finally getting me on because I felt really bad the other week when when I was an hour from home when I got the call, but it's uh it's been an absolute pleasure and good to finally catch up.
1:07:08
SPEAKER_00: It's been great and and I've been awesome.
1:07:10
SPEAKER_00: We'll definitely get uh get in touch about the um drop shipping in prints across the country across the globe.
1:07:17
SPEAKER_00: That'd be fantastic.
1:07:18
SPEAKER_02: You know, for all of us, a particular you know, I mean I don't know about you guys, but I I mean I've got my business business, you know, which my my hopes is to one day get out of that and you know, move into photography full time, but the reality is that's what puts food on the table most of the time.
1:07:34
SPEAKER_02: And you know, my photography income really just supplies my photography, really is yeah, that's that's sort of the stage.
1:07:41
SPEAKER_02: But you know, things like that, getting together and and helping each other out and find you know that that that could help a lot of us out because um it's always just finding new ways of being able to sustain ourselves off what we love doing, isn't it?
1:07:55
SPEAKER_02: You know, which can be quite different.
1:07:57
SPEAKER_00: Um and for those who are who are listening that either know a printer from uh globally that outside of Australia or would be interested in something like this, please reach out to any of us.
1:08:09
SPEAKER_00: We I think we if we can get the ball rolling on something like this, I think it will be benefit especially.
1:08:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, even in Australia.
1:08:18
SPEAKER_01: If you can have like an Australia-wide network, it'll like cut your shipping down.
1:08:22
SPEAKER_01: Like if you send a big print from say the east coast to West Australia, like you're looking at$400,$450 upward minimum, you know.
1:08:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
1:08:31
SPEAKER_02: I mean, uh one, we're on an island floating out in the middle of nowhere, which makes it hard to ship into that shit.
1:08:37
SPEAKER_02: And then that island happens to be half the size of the world, doesn't it?
1:08:41
SPEAKER_02: So getting from east coast to west coast, is that you're right, like even yeah, from where I am at the moment to east, where you you know what, that's that's like going on flight.
1:08:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:08:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, at full chat, yeah, exactly.
1:08:55
SPEAKER_01: That's at the tailwind.
1:08:56
SPEAKER_01: I think with a tailwind, you get three three hours and 45 minutes or something.
1:09:01
SPEAKER_02: You do.
1:09:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that I love that when you you're just like, wow, that was quick.
1:09:05
SPEAKER_01: Especially when you're changing time zone going backwards.
1:09:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, go on to you gain extra time in the day.
1:09:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, go on to WA for for work, used to give me um jet lag.
1:09:17
SPEAKER_00: It does, man.
1:09:18
SPEAKER_00: It does give you jet lag.
1:09:19
SPEAKER_02: When it hey, when you are you if you're ever over this way, make sure you hit me up because um I'm keen actually.
1:09:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm keen.
1:09:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because I I'm quite north, right?
1:09:27
SPEAKER_02: So like all the prime spots for aerial photography are pretty close, you know.
1:09:31
SPEAKER_02: I mean Hutt Hutt Lagoon's only five hours north of where I am, you know, in Lake Cow Barry.
1:09:37
SPEAKER_02: And if you guys are not shot that, like that's just a gem in itself.
1:09:40
SPEAKER_02: It's like it's about probably six K long by like three K wide.
1:09:45
SPEAKER_02: I'm but it's just like it's got just that one shoot for an hour would give you material for you know for a long time.
1:09:53
SPEAKER_02: It's just so diverse.
1:09:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you you've got all the mining section, then you've got all the nature section, and um so it's just like, yeah, man, if you if you guys get over here in one, I I'm always looking for an excuse to get out of town.
1:10:05
SPEAKER_00: I I might just have to uh try and get on the cricket tours and get it back over there again.
1:10:11
SPEAKER_02: Hey, we just had we just had Australia versus Pakistan.
1:10:14
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah, I know I missed it.
1:10:15
SPEAKER_00: No, I used to I used to go over there a lot for when I worked for Channel 9, so we're quicker there every year.
1:10:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was gonna try and get I was gonna try and go watch one of the days, but with my old boy, but um who I'm in business with, but yeah, we just like yeah, well we say it every year.
1:10:30
SPEAKER_02: Like, we'll go and watch it, and then and then it's like, oh yeah, it's over.
1:10:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:10:34
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, no, I know I'm looking forward to watching that this summer.
1:10:37
SPEAKER_02: That's I don't I just I just love watching cricket.
1:10:40
SPEAKER_02: My missus is like, how can you watch such a such a boring game?
1:10:44
SPEAKER_00: I agree with her.
1:10:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:10:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a fan of watching the cricket either, to be honest.
1:10:48
SPEAKER_01: Just those long, those long drawn out like dispatches always got me in summer.
1:10:53
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what it is?
1:10:54
SPEAKER_02: I think it's about being I remember being a kid, right?
1:10:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, in summertime being around granddad, and it was always on in the background.
1:11:01
SPEAKER_02: So I think it's like one of those weird subliminal, like I just like it.
1:11:05
SPEAKER_02: It means it's summertime and it means I'm on holiday.
1:11:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so for me, I didn't grow up with it in the background, so that I'm not a fan, but it would always be like the lounge room would have like the TV on with a cricket.
1:11:16
SPEAKER_01: There'd be the little one in the kitchen, and then be one in the shed.
1:11:18
SPEAKER_01: So you just walk around doing your housework all day, and you can always see like if something was happening on the cricket, you'd be like, Oh, that's on.
1:11:24
SPEAKER_01: And it'd just be a one pedestal fan in each room just flopping for this thing, you know.
1:11:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then on top of that, I'd have granddad on the on the radio listen to the TAB, the horses on Saturday.
1:11:37
SPEAKER_02: Just yelling at him.
1:11:38
SPEAKER_02: That's my memories of cricket.
1:11:40
SPEAKER_00: Why do we drink gamble and just love our sport, right?
1:11:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:11:43
SPEAKER_01: That'd be like VB or the or for it, you know.
1:11:46
SPEAKER_01: And then you'd be there drinking what is it like Kirks.
1:11:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, drinking a kirk.
1:11:52
SPEAKER_02: Ginger beer.
1:11:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:11:53
SPEAKER_02: Does it does it have alcohol in it?
1:11:55
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it has a little bit.
1:11:56
SPEAKER_00: It says beer.
1:11:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Brooke Valley Union are doing a very good job of bringing out those drinks with alcohol in it.
1:12:02
SPEAKER_00: I just I just bought cream and soda, it was fantastic.
1:12:06
SPEAKER_02: And I I I've got I'm on my second month without touching a drink at the moment.
1:12:11
SPEAKER_00: Congratulations.
1:12:12
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
1:12:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I just I I went to go a month.
1:12:14
SPEAKER_02: I thought, right, I'm gonna do a month.
1:12:15
SPEAKER_02: And I did a month, went, yeah, I'll do another month.
1:12:18
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty good.
1:12:19
SPEAKER_00: It's good weather, but especially over Christmas is difficult.
1:12:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well that's it.
1:12:24
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like crissy times gonna come to test.
1:12:26
SPEAKER_02: But I I mean, look, I'm just doing it out of I'll probably have one or two, but yeah.
1:12:30
SPEAKER_02: But um yeah, I I um I'm enjoying it, I would say.
1:12:35
SPEAKER_00: Save you some money too.
1:12:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:12:39
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
1:12:40
SPEAKER_00: But uh pleasure, guys.
1:12:42
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us very much.
1:12:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks for joining us.
1:12:44
SPEAKER_01: Um where can everyone find your work so that we can put in the show notes.
1:12:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, look, um basically at the moment is Instagram at Scott John Photography, John with uh without a H, so just J-O-N.
1:12:56
SPEAKER_02: Scott John Photography, um, and then Scottjohn ArialArt.com.au, which will be up in the next few days, so yeah, before this before this comes out, guys.
1:13:05
SPEAKER_02: But um, yeah, that'd be awesome.
1:13:07
SPEAKER_02: If uh anyone wants to jump on our website when it's up and get a phone cover, they're most welcome too.
1:13:11
SPEAKER_00: You won't miss out, that's for sure.
1:13:13
SPEAKER_01: Anyone that hasn't seen Scott's work, uh jump on and check it out.
1:13:16
SPEAKER_01: Give him a follow.
1:13:17
SPEAKER_01: If you can buy some, buy some because it's friggin' epic.
1:13:21
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, guys.
1:13:22
SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
1:13:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you won't be regretful.
1:13:24
SPEAKER_01: You'll you'll love it forever.
1:13:25
SPEAKER_02: And you better you better you better let me know when you're coming over.
1:13:28
SPEAKER_01: Yep, and I'll let you know.
1:13:30
SPEAKER_01: We'll have to plan it, man.
1:13:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm keen.
1:13:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yep.
1:13:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I like I said guys, I'd be I'll I'm it'd be an absolute pleasure to go on a little northern aerial adventure if you guys are keen.
1:13:40
SPEAKER_02: You can do the whole run, how Barry Shark Bay in about four days.
1:13:44
SPEAKER_00: I've never shot I've never shot aerials, but I'll give it a crack.
1:13:46
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to do that.
1:13:48
SPEAKER_02: All right, I'll show you.
1:13:50
SPEAKER_02: I'll show you.
1:13:50
SPEAKER_01: I'd love to do that, and up in the Exmouth with Nigaloo there.
1:13:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:13:54
SPEAKER_02: You have Ningler, yeah.
1:13:55
SPEAKER_02: That's that is a oh dude, that is cool.
1:13:58
SPEAKER_02: If you get with all the whale sharks there and everything, so that's about a seven day.
1:14:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:14:04
SPEAKER_02: If you if you you could do that in about seven comfortable days, areas we'll have to have a discussion.
1:14:10
SPEAKER_01: Would you fly between each spot or would you drive?
1:14:12
SPEAKER_02: Drive, so much more fun, yeah you know, because your cameras in the car, there's a lot of material on the way in between spots.
1:14:18
SPEAKER_02: It's like very desolate sort of stuff, but it's good stuff, you know.
1:14:22
SPEAKER_00: I'll drive, I'll just shoot the ground.
1:14:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, that's it.
1:14:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then you know, yeah, about seven, eight days we've done it.
1:14:29
SPEAKER_02: Round trip, so you know, Cow Barry, Shark Bay, X-mouth, and then turn back round and come back through.
1:14:35
SPEAKER_02: Um, I think that ground stuff would suit my style too.
1:14:38
SPEAKER_01: Um jump in and plan this.
1:14:40
SPEAKER_01: We'll plan it.
1:14:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm in.
1:14:42
SPEAKER_02: I'm in, boys.
1:14:43
SPEAKER_02: I'm in.
1:14:43
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much again.
1:14:44
SPEAKER_02: Have a lovely day.
1:14:46
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna go and uh well, hopefully the void work, but we'll see.
1:14:50
SPEAKER_00: And um thanks again, mate.
1:14:53
SPEAKER_00: Appreciate it.
1:14:54
SPEAKER_00: And thanks everyone for for listening and joining us, and we'll catch you on our next episode.